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Well I’m finally getting around to writing about Nice. Like Adrian said we went to Monaco on our second day to check out the F1, that was pretty exciting even though the qualifying had finished there were still heaps of people around and we got to check out the track from seats that probably would have been 300â‚¬ or more to sit in. Monaco is really beautiful, the train ride from Nice to Monaco was great checking out all the beautiful beaches along the way.

More Beach

I decided to stay in Nice on our third day while Adrian went to check out the race. I’d noticed all these cool shops the day before and hadn’t really had a chance to go shopping until now so I was really looking forward to it! So when Adrian left for Monaco I headed for the shops and I was devastated to find they were all closed! It was about 11am on a Sunday so I thought they might just open a little later on Sundays so I headed to the beach and on the way found a little market but it wasn’t really the type of stuff I was after. I sat at the beach for a while (not very comfy cos its pebbles!) and took a few photos and thought I’d try again to see if the shops had opened but they didn’t. There really isn’t much to do in Nice other than go shopping and to the beach so I just went back to where we were staying and had a nice relaxing afternoon reading a book by myself So thats my Nice story not really exciting! I would like to go back there though and spend more time at Monaco and the surrounding islands.

On the way to Nice after Pisa we travelled along the French Riviera. This is a massively long route that runs along the east coast of Italy into France. The scenery was quite amazing looking at the nice blue ocean disappear into the horizon through large hills and mountains. The roads along the way are well built for the journey. We travelled over so many massively tall bridges linking one large mountain to another and went through many tunnels cutting through the inside of the mountains. It was easily the most amazing scenery we’ve seen on a bus so far.

Monaco

Just thirty minutes from Nice we started to head into Monaco. The land of the rich, famous and loads of hot super cars. On the way there, three red hot Ferraris blasted past us making a lot of noise. I was excited already. We were in the mountains creeping up to Monaco and popped out looking down on to the major port of Monaco. Wow oh wow. What a fantastic place. The view on top of the Monaco mountains looking down into the main port is just unreal. Amazingly blue water into a port full of huge cruise liners and tall apartment buildings. All on a very steep hill. I should note that the picture in no way does it’s justice at we were far from the port and I was on the bus when this was taken. I’d love to live there if it didn’t cost 1,000,000 euro non refundable application fee for residency. Madonna and Michael Jackson were refused residency and lost there one million euro application fee. Ouch. Continue reading →

Today we went to the Louvre. This is one of Paris’ most famous museum and is home to the Mona Lisa. We managed to get a photo holding the Mona Lisa The Louvre is huge. To cover all of it you would need a full day or more.

After that we headed to Notre Dame to get a closer look and to walk around inside. It is huge. I really don’t know how they built this building in their times. It’s very tall and you can walk around the top to see Paris.

Sacre Coeur

We then headed to the Sacre Coeur which is a huge church but the main attraction is that it is on a hill which looks over a large part of Paris. Paris is quite flat so the view is great. It’s right near our place, so we’re gonna head back tonight to go have a look at Paris at night. It should be a great view, just as it is in the day.

So tommorrow we are off to Amsterdam. My mum told me I should go check out the “coffee shops” and she said the red light district is worth a visit hehhehehhe just kidding. Hi mum if you’re reading!

So of course I had to go, you gotta see all of the famous Paris sites They had two full size pod racers (see pic below) and heaps of other full size objects used from all six movies, including costumes (see storm trooper pic), light sabers and other bits and pieces. They had loads of sections where you could read up on the history, how they did things and so forth. Any way it was well worth the ten euro (16 skippy dollars).

Storm Trooper

Further to what Rach has wrote. On the way into France there were so many massively large fields that were so lushiously green. Better than lush golf greens. It looked really clean and fresh. They’re definately not in drought over here.

Eiffel Tower

All of the cars here are Renaults and Peugeots. It’s funny to see Mercedes Benz taxis

When we went on the hour long cruise as a part of the bike tour, we got to see lots of paris at night time. It’s a lovely place and is well lit up. Along the river we were on every now and again we’d see these tents. The guide informed us that once a year the Parisiens (The people of Paris) doing something nice for the poor. Apparently this year they bought the homeless tents. So heaps of the homeless have got tents! Any way, every hour on the hour the Eiffel tower sparkles like crazy just like a sparkler. That’s what that photo is.

Notre Dame

The metro (short for metropolitan rail way) is just as easy to use as the tube, except for that it’s in French. It’s quite interesting trying to buy a ticket from some one who only knows French. The first time I just pointed at the place on the map and held up two fingers meaning two people.

The bike tour was so funny, there we were a group of 15 taking over the streets of Paris stopping traffic all in bright fluro vests. The tour was 24 euro and well worth it for 5 hours, some good excercise, a one hour ride on a river boat and some wine to go with it.

The Eiffel tower is an interesting sight, especially when you’ve always just seen it on post cards. It put a big grin on my face to see it as popped out of the metro and starting walking towards it and then it appeared. Rach and I were a little alarmed at the French military walking around with big machine guns. I guess we’re just not used to seeing guns. But I guess they think they need it since September 11th. These guys looked so bored and mean that I bet they’d be keen as to let a few shots go.

Guard

It poored down today in the afternoon about 6. Lucky I had Ness’ emergency poncho to save the day. We had dinner made up of items from the local supermarket (sandwhich, dips, cruskits, ice cream with cookie dough. Nothing special). The super market makes you pack your own bags and their trolleys are really little carts that hold the normal hand baskets. It only gets dark here about 10pm which is really usefull. Any way gotta get to sleep got a big day of free museums.

PS. I hate the French keyboards. The letters A, M,W and Z are in a completely different place to ours and you have to hold shift to get numbers.

Well where do I start? Today is our second day in Paris and it has been great so far! Paris is absolutely beautiful I had no idea how amazing it was.

Rach – Bike Tour

We went on a 5 hour bike tour last night which was so much fun. It was so crazy we were riding on the road weaving in and out of traffic I thought one of us was going to get hit for sure! We saw the eiffel tower, notre dame, louvre plus lots more other stuff and went on a cruise down the seine river.

Today we went back to the eiffel tower, we were going to go up but the weather was pretty average so we’re going to wait until tomorrow. We also went to the Arc de Triomphe. It is situated in the middle of a roundabout that has at least 12 streets going off it and its absolutely crazy theres cars going in every direction and theres seems to be no rules everyone just goes anywhere. Apparently there is an accident every 6 minutes but we didn’t see one today.

Eiffel Tower

The first sunday of every month musuems have free entry so we are going tomorrow to visit as many as we can.

One thing I’ve noticed is theres such cute dogs everywhere! On the bike tour lastnight I saw a dog that looked like Harvey crossed with a sausage dog it was so cute!

Ok thats all from me now I’m sure Adrian will write some more about Paris.